


Empty Houses

by Raina_at



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach, can't summarise without spoiling, high-concept
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 03:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16297661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raina_at/pseuds/Raina_at
Summary: Sherlock comes back to Baker Street, and John is gone.





	Empty Houses

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been out of fandom for a while, so I have neither a beta nor a brit-picker. So this is neither beta-ed nor brit-picked. If you notice anything please let me know.  
> Also, this is the first fanfiction I've finished since 2012, so be gentle with me ;-)

Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 688 days, and John is gone.

This shouldn’t surprise him, logically, but it does. He’d sort of thought that John would… wait for him, somehow. But since John didn’t know Sherlock would come back waiting for him to do so would have been entirely illogical, though perfectly in character.

But Sherlock doesn’t necessarily view John’s absence as a bad thing at first, because he sees getting John back as an easily winnable challenge. So he decides to make his coming back from the dead both funny and memorable and plays a prank on John.

It’s the wrong thing to do. 

Understatement. 

It’s the worst thing he could have done.

John isn’t amused and delighted, he’s gutted and so very, very angry, and as the night progresses, and they get thrown out of increasingly shabby restaurants, he’s no less gutted and no less angry.

And then, at the end of the night, Sherlock is finally forced to notice that they’re not alone. That the woman John was with stayed through all of it, and seems not to be perturbed by it. That she’s quiet and calm and interesting the way John is quiet and calm and interesting. 

Sherlock should hate her, really. And he does, he hates her for touching John, for taking him away, for being good for John. At the same time Sherlock should love her, because she held John together with her bare hands, because she’s tough and brave and kind and carries a bag of heavy secrets. And Sherlock does love her. Which is why he doesn’t destroy her, doesn’t use every trick in his repertoire to get John away from her, because John, damn him, is happy. John has moved on.

Only not quite, because there seems to be a part of John’s that is still as much Sherlock’s as it always was, because John sticks around as much as he can with a fiance and a job and a life in which Sherlock is no longer the center but a fringe benefit. Important, yes, but he used to be John’s oxygen, and now he is merely his friend. 

And the problem with that is, John is still Sherlock’s oxygen. Sherlock tries his very best not to show it, but he’s drowning a little here. Two years of being alone, and he kept breathing through all of it because he had that space in his mind, called 221B Baker Street, where John Watson was waiting for him. 

Only of course it was stupid, so stupid, to think that John would wait. Of course he moved on and found somebody else, and the only reason it didn’t occur to Sherlock is that _he_ will never be able to move on, there will never be another John Watson in his life, nobody will fill that space beside him. 

Sherlock might have pulled John out of a depressive spiral, but John’s impact on Sherlock’s life is more akin to an asteroid, and Sherlock only realised when he was away from John how much his view of who and what he is has changed since he met John. It’s like John redefined the lines and angles of Sherlock Holmes just by looking at him like he did - still does, really - like he’s amazing, brilliant, mad but in a good way. Sherlock wanted to be this person so very, very much, and he stepped into the empty space beside John as easily as John fit himself into the hollowed-out parts of Sherlock’s life, and they formed a whole - SherlockHolmesandDr.Watson. 

And then Sherlock went and broke them back into individual pieces. Granted, he had no choice at the time. And John eventually forgives him, but he’s made a new whole with another person, and even though there are plenty of empty spaces where Sherlock still fits easily, it’s not the same, in fact it is so much _less_ Sherlock isn’t sure he’ll be able to take it.

He tries. There are cases, and they’re great, and there’s 221B, which is still good, if only because every surface has a memory of John attached to it. 

And then John gets married, and Sherlock is there, of course, and he tries to be normal, he does, but then he picks up his violin and plays, and it’s like he’s hemorrhaging the music instead of playing it, the music is pouring out of his chest cavity where his heart is breaking, and nobody sees except John, who’s looking at him like he’s bleeding a bit himself, mourning everything they could have been, had Sherlock not broken them. 

Sherlock all but flees then, and goes back to Baker Street, and it’s so quiet, so empty, how did he never notice how empty he is, how is he supposed to take this, how is he supposed to live like this, alone, alone, alone...

_No. No, no, no. No. Go back. Rewind. Change it. It doesn’t have to be like this. Change the variables. Mycroft can change the variables._

_Text Mycroft: Make sure he doesn’t fall in love._

_Easy._

_Rewind._

_Start again._

 

Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 688 days, and John is gone.

It takes one look at Mycroft’s face when he lands in London to know everything.

“When? How?” he asks, voice barely audible, the hollow places inside of him where John used to fit ringing like a bell.

“Traffic accident. Six months ago. He was…” Mycroft hesitates, and Sherlock has never seen his brother look this affected, this uncomfortable, and that alone tells him that all his hollowness must show on his face. “He was hit by a lorry and killed instantly. There was no foul play, it was just an accident.”

“I want to see it,” Sherlock hears himself say as if from far away. “I need to see it.”

Mycroft nods. “I anticipated this. But you really shouldn’t, it’s not… pleasant.”

“I don’t care if it’s pleasant, I need to know what happened,” Sherlock snarls at Mycroft, because Mycroft is being tedious, and he’s being stupid, because Sherlock has to see it to believe it, with his own eyes, has to see John one last time and know he’s gone, and then he can make the hollow ringing in his ears and the clawing emptiness in his chest go away.

Mycroft maneuvers him into a car, and Sherlock loses track of everything until he’s sitting in front of a monitor and watches John Watson die. Even in the washed-out CCTV footage John looks pale and tired. He’s limping. He doesn’t pay attention to traffic. The lorry runs a red light. John doesn’t even look up. 

The blood is very red and the brain matter is very white.

Sherlock spends the next ten minutes dry-heaving over a waste paper basket.

_He was limping, he was so thin, and so tired, oh god this is all my fault._

He ignores Mycroft and stumbles out of the nondescript government building.

He doesn’t know how he gets to the cemetery, he doesn’t know where the gun comes from, he only knows this must end right now. Right now. 

_No, no, no, wrong, stop, this is unbearable._  
Again.  
Different variables, different data set entirely.   
Text Mycroft: Do think of something for him to do. Give him some kind of purpose.  
Better.  
The next one has to be better. It can’t get worse. 

_Rewind._

_Start again._

 

Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 688 days, and John is gone.

When Sherlock asks, Mycroft says, “Oh, yes, right. Last I heard he was in Yemen. I must check whether he’s still there.”

“What is he doing in Yemen?” Sherlock asks, even though the answer occurs to him two seconds after the question is out of his mouth. “Of course,” he says. “Doctors Without Borders, is it?”

Mycroft shrugs. “You said to give him something to do.”

Sherlock nods reluctantly. “I suppose you’re right.” He sighs. “Now I have to go to Yemen and fetch him. You really are quite tiresome, Mycroft, you might have arranged for him to be home, you knew I was coming after all.”

“I tried,” Mycroft said calmly. “He wouldn’t come.”

Sherlock leaves for Aden 6 hours later. 

It takes him another day to reach the field hospital. 

It’s evening when he arrives, and he doesn’t go straight into the main hospital tent, he hovers on the outskirts, hoping to get a glimpse of John, to have some kind of idea what he’s walking into.

As luck would have it, he arrives ten minutes before shift change. John steps out of one of the large canvas tents, white pants, white shirt, lab coat, stethoscope around his neck. He looks tired, but long-work-day tired, not desperate-depressed tired. He’s holding a cup of tea and cranking his neck a little, and he’s looking thoughtful, but not sad. His hands are steady, his legs carry him easily. He looks taller, somehow, more confidently John Watson, than he did when Sherlock met him. 

He looks, in short, like the last thing he needs right now is Sherlock Holmes. 

If Sherlock were almost literally anyone else on the planet, that might stop him. Since he isn’t though, he steps out of the shadows. “John,” he whispers, and it’s so good to see John, to see the emotions flicker over John’s so very expressive face - joy, anger, sadness, hurt, love, oh God, so much love - and they don’t talk at all this time, John just grabs him and kisses him like he’s performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and maybe he is, because Sherlock feels very much like he’s only breathing because John Watson is.

John takes him to his too-small room in one of the wooden barracks that surround the big hospital tents, and they slowly undress each other, touch everywhere, and Sherlock wonders why it didn’t occur to him before that he might want this, might want John this way. Normally sex is messy and complicated and Sherlock doesn’t care for it, but he should have known it would be different with John - everything is - and it feels so good to be touched, to be wanted. It’s still messy, and it’s still complicated, but it’s also beautiful and breathtaking. It’s the happiest Sherlock has ever been, lying there on John’s tiny bunk with a utilitarian, ugly light bulb swinging from the ceiling, the heat of the day slowly draining out of the wood, the desert outside, vast and silent, and John right there with him, so alive, so angry, so passionately glad to see him.

_This is good, I’ll text Mycroft to arrange for this one,_ he thinks,but as they lie pressed together in the dark, and John falls asleep on him, warm breath, warm body, warm skin every inch of John held closely against his body, he sees the future unspool in front of his eyes like a yarn that got away from him.

John won’t want to leave. Sherlock won’t want to stay. They’ll fight, and Sherlock will stay, become bored, blame John, and John will come back to London with him, and will miss this, the hospital and being needed for something other than making sure Sherlock stays moderately sane, and John will blame him. They’ll stay together, because neither can bear anything else, but it won’t be joy and fun and adventure, the sheer delight they always took in each other, it will be with the knowledge that somehow after years of making each other into their best selves, they’ve somehow made each other less than they were.

_No._  
No.  
Unacceptable.  
Alter the variables.  
Rewind.  
Start again.   


 

Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 3195 days, and John is gone.

Mrs Hudson has died, John inherited the house, sold it, moved away, nobody knows where. The house was razed and there’s an ugly high rise there now, with ugly, modern apartments, huge windows, posh. Hateful, soulless. Cold. Lonely.

__  
No.  
Too long. Come back sooner.  
Rewind.  
Start again.  


Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 895 days, and John is gone.

Nobody knows where is save Mycroft, and he’s not telling. 

Sherlock finally finds John at his sister’s flat, in a drunken stupor, so far gone it’s clear he has no idea who Sherlock even is.

__  
No.  
Rewind.  
Start again.  


Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 1500 days exactly, and John is gone.

He finds John within two hours, at Bart’s, oncology, and the moment he walks into that room he knows John’s got maybe three months to live, and that night after the by now usual anger and yelling and kissing, he crawls into bed with John with a syringe and two lethal doses of morphine, and he asks, and John says yes, and god, Sherlock, thank God it’s you, and it’s the last thing either of them hears, John whispering Sherlock’s name...

__  
No.  
Rewind.  
Start again.  


Sherlock comes back to Baker Street after 959 days, and John is gone.

He works at Bart’s, in A&E, and he has a girlfriend he doesn’t love, and he got a dog. He’s got a ten month old baby at home, and he tells Sherlock to go fuck himself with so much venom it nearly burns Sherlock’s skin. He’s not angry and desperately happy, he’s just angry, deeply betrayed, and when he says he will never forgive Sherlock, Sherlock believes him.

Sherlock comes back to Baker Street after 456 days, and John is gone.

He’s teaching at Uni, moved to Manchester and lives with a bloke. Sherlock gets punched in the face. John breaks up with the bloke but stays in Manchester. Sherlock moves to Manchester. He hates it. John throws him out after his third cocaine bender. Sherlock goes back to London alone. John stays in Manchester.

Sherlock comes back to Baker Street after 455 days, after 354, after 546, after 539, and John is gone, gone, gone.

He’s in Karachi as a war correspondent and Sherlock gets punched in the face again. They don’t see each other again. Sherlock goes back to London alone.  
He’s in Devonshire and married to an artist. Both have affairs on the side. Sherlock becomes one of them. It ends when John refuses to leave his wife, who’s pregnant with their second child. Sherlock goes back to London alone.  
He’s in New York working in a drug recovery center. Sherlock has the best sex of his life, but John’s wholly uninterested in Sherlock’s work, and Sherlock finds the new reformed John boring, and they split up pretty amicably and it’s still the worst day of Sherlock’s life. He goes back to London alone.

__  
No. Wrong. All wrong. There must be something, some way to fix this.  
Again.   
Rewind.  
Start again.  


Sherlock comes home to Baker Street after 1868 days, and John is gone.

Nobody knows where he is save Mycroft, and he’s not telling.

It takes Sherlock six days to track John to a small family practice in rural Yorkshire.  
He breaks into John’s tiny house to wait for him to come home from the surgery. He makes tea and searches the house top to bottom for any clue what John is doing here.

He finds nothing. If he didn’t know for certain John Watson lives here, he could never tell from the contents of the house. Yes, his teas are sorted in a certain way, and he always used to put the milk carton into the fridge at a certain angle, but other than that, the house is a blank. No pictures, no knick-knacks, no mementos. No gun. No dog-tags. He doesn’t recognise a single piece of clothing. 

He finds take-out menus and a mobile phone with few contacts, none of which Sherlock knows. A new laptop that looks as if it’s been barely touched. Diaries with half-written entries about nothing in particular, lunches and patients and emptiness.

Dusk falls. 

The back door opens, and suddenly John is there, standing in the kitchen and staring at Sherlock, who’s sitting at the table with a cup of tea in the dark. 

For a moment, they stare at each other wordlessly. John looks… Sherlock has no words for how John looks. He looks… blank, kind of. Tired. Sober. He looks done.

“I’m not even really surprised,” he finally says, then sits down and pours himself a cup of tea from the pot Sherlock made. 

“I can explain,” Sherlock says, alarmed now by the blankness in John’s voice, in his eyes.

John waves him off and takes a sip of tea. “Does it matter? I’m sure you had your reasons.”

Silence falls, and Sherlock doesn’t know what to say, because for all the times he’s done this, all of the times and different ways he explained and apologised and fought, he’s never had a John Watson who just didn’t seem to care.

“John,” Sherlock says, quietly, hating himself a little for the quiver in his voice.

John rubs a tired hand over his face and looks at Sherlock, still so very calm. “What do you want from me, Sherlock? It’s been five years.”

Five years. Has it really been five years? 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, waving the argument away with an impatient hand gesture. “I’m here now. Will you come back with me?”

“Back?” John asks like he’s not entirely sure whether Sherlock is sane. “Back where? London? Baker Street? After five years, five fucking years, you come here and I’m just supposed to drop everything and come back to London with you?”

“Yes, of course I want you to come back with me,” Sherlock says, and he hates himself for the barely hidden desperation in his voice. “Come on, John, adventure, you and me against the world, just like it used to be. We can have this again, we can have our lives back again.”

John just looks at him, infinitely sad. He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he sighs and looks down, and says, quietly, “Do you know how long it took for me to get over you? When you… left, I fell apart completely. It took me years of therapy to realise that what I felt was only partly grief. A lot of it was withdrawal. I’m an adrenaline addict, and you basically are adrenaline. I let myself get dependent on you. And that will never, ever, happen to me again.” He looks up now, and there, finally, is the sliver of anger Sherlock has been waiting for. But it’s old anger, quiet and dealt with and scabbed over. “You, Sherlock Holmes, cannot be trusted. I thought once you were the North Star, but you’re a mirage. The closer I got to you the more elusive you were, and I loved it, basked in it while I allowed you to hollow me out until all there was left of me was you. And you loved that, didn’t you, making me dependent on you and strung out and desperate for your attention. You gobbled it up, you gobbled me up, and I let you. I let you. I let you define me, and when you were gone I had no idea who I was anymore.”

“No, that’s not true,” Sherlock says, quietly, desperately shaking his head. “No, no, it was me, I was the one who was defined by you, who the fuck cares about Sherlock Holmes without John Watson? I certainly don’t. You’re the only person who knows me, John, the only one who cares. My only friend.”

John smiles sadly at him. “Even if that’s true, don’t you see? I’m your friend, yes, but you, you were my crutch, my heroin. And that’s as much my fault for allowing myself to get dependent on you as it’s your fault for fostering my addiction. Our relationship in a nutshell, I’m your friend and you’re my dealer.” He gets up and pats Sherlock’s shoulder a little clumsily. “I’m going to bed. You can let yourself out.”

He walks away without looking back. 

Time slows. Sherlock feels his skin crack. There’s a noticeable distortion in the air, a screeching, humming, ugly sound that seems to come from somewhere inside his head.

This is the worst one yet. Worse than hatred. Worse than dying. Worse than death. 

This is a John Watson who doesn’t love him anymore.

_No. No. No._

_Go back. Go back now. Right now. So it never comes to this._

Sherlock comes back to Baker Street after 69 days, and John is still there. 

It’s night. Sherlock enters the building through the back windows of 221C. He climbs the stairs as quietly as possible. He lingers for a few moments at their door, presses his hands to the wood as if he could feel the buildings’ heartbeat under his palms. 

John is asleep on the couch. The room is bathed in moonlight. It’s stuffy and messy, books everywhere, papers everywhere, the kitchen is a disaster area. It’s smaller than Sherlock remembers. It’s absolutely perfect. 

He sinks down to his knees next to the couch and stares at John for a while. The moonlight makes him look paler than he is.

There’s a soft, nearly whimpering sound, and Sherlock is shocked to notice it’s coming from him, and then he leans his head forward into John’s chest, into one of his hideous jumpers, and just breathes John in, the warmth of him, the tea-doctor-home smell of him.

There’s a noise from somewhere, and Sherlock looks up and stares directly into John’s wide, shocked eyes. 

“I missed you,” Sherlock mutters, head still resting on John’s chest, and that’s brilliant because he can hear John’s heartbeat picking up noticeably, adrenaline and emotion. “I can’t do this alone. I could before I met you, and then you came along and now it’s not enough, now I know I don’t have to be alone, and I can’t take it anymore, it’s been sixty-nine days, and I can’t do this, I can’t, I can’t…”

“Sherlock,” John interrupts him, quietly, reverently. He threads his fingers into Sherlock’s hair and pulls him up. “Shut up.” 

Sherlock doesn’t know who started the kissing this time, but it doesn’t really matter that much.

They fall asleep tangled on the couch.

There’s a faint beeping sound, a smell of chlorine in the air.

He opens his eyes. 

There’s 221B Baker Street. There is John Watson, lying on the floor, staring at him, wide-eyed with fear.

There’s Jim Moriarty, straddling John, strapped in Semtex, grinning wide and holding a very big, very sharp knife. “Hello there,” he says, grinning widely and madly at Sherlock. “You really shouldn’t have come back.”

“You’re dead,” Sherlock whispers, frozen with fear. “You’re dead, I watched you die.”

“Sherlock,” John says, and Sherlock already knows what he’s going to say. “Run. Get out of here. Run. Now.”

Moriarty smiles at Sherlock, smarmy, insinuating, knowing, so knowing, knowing exactly where to hit to do the most damage, and Sherlock has never hated anyone the way he hates Jim right now. “He won’t run,” Jim says, voice dripping disdain. “He’ll never run. It’s his weakness. He _feels_. He _loves_. Weaknesses, all of them. Friends, landladies, brothers even, and whatever you are. Pet? Plaything? Distraction?”

_Everything,_ Sherlock thinks and doesn’t say. _He’s everything._

Aloud he says, “I’m really quite done with this.”

He gets up and shoots Jim in the head with a gun that he just happens to be holding, then he walks out of 221B, directly into the wide halls and beautiful peace of his mind palace. 

“Time to end this,” John says, walking a few paces behind him. “Don’t you think?”

Sherlock turns around and they’re standing in 221B again, no Moriarty this time. “But I still don’t have an answer. I’ve gone through so many variables, and I still don’t know how it’s going to end. I’ve altered nearly everything I could think of, and the outcome is never perfect, it’s never like it was before.”

John sits down in his chair and sips from a mug of tea that’s appeared in his hand. “Maybe it can’t be. Maybe you’ve ruined it. It was always the most likely outcome of our… association, shall we call it …, that sooner or later you’d break something you wouldn’t be able to fix. After all,” and he turns into Mycroft mid-sentence, “it’s not like you have any experience with this. It’s not like you’ve ever been able to keep anyone around for longer than they absolutely had to be.”

“I can fix this, I can, I know I can,” Sherlock says, rubbing his eyes as his vision turns blurry around the edges, the lines of the room are running, melting, and slowly he can see the drab curtains and yellowed walls of the shabby hotel room he’s staying in.

“No, just a little longer, I need to figure this out,” he mutters, concentrates, and he’s in Baker Street again. The lights are too bright, and he already has an enormous headache, but he can do this, he can sustain it a little longer, he needs an answer. “I can’t go back now, Moriarty’s henchmen would kill him, or use him as bait to make sure I never tell anyone what I’ve found out and all of this would be for nothing, I did all this to keep him out of danger. I need more time, but if I give him more time he won’t wait for me. I need to figure out what to do to fix this.”

“What if there is no fixing it? What if he’s gone for good?” Mycroft says, calmly, but with an air of disdainful condescension. “You don’t need him anyway. Emotional entanglements aren’t useful, Sherlock. They’re the precise reason you’re here, in a shabby hotel, instead of your own home. You could have just killed Moriarty and walked away, if you didn’t have people. What’s the point of all this? What’s the _use_?”

Sherlock blinks, tries to formulate a coherent reply. “I wouldn't expect you to understand. You never had a friend,” he whispers, quietly, sadly, and then he closes his eyes and stops resisting unconsciousness. 

*-*

Sherlock has been gone from 221B Baker Street for 68 days when he wakes up from a drug-induced catatonia in a dingy hotel room somewhere in Eastern Europe. 

His head is pounding. There’s an empty syringe lying on the filthy duvet next to him. The sheets are soaked with sweat. He’s ravenously hungry and his throat is parched. He reeks of dried sweat and desperation. His laptop on the desk has run out of power and shut itself down, otherwise it would still show the grainy CCTV footage of Baker Street and John Watson’s face.

For maybe the very first time in his life, Sherlock would like nothing more than to go back to sleep. But he can’t. Images from his journey into his mind palace flit around behind his eyelids every time he closes his eyes. John kissing him, John yelling at him, John leaving, leaving, leaving.

The problem with emotion, he concludes, is that it isn’t a sound, predictable basis for decision making. And John does most of his decision making based on emotion. And since Sherlock has always been bad at predicting how John will feel about any given thing - which is mostly good, because Sherlock would never, ever have predicted John to feel anything at all about _him_ \- he can’t predict how John will react to his return to London. If in fact he lives long enough to return, which is by no means certain.

There are currently five contingency plans on hold for every possibility he can think of. If he dies, if he returns, if he doesn’t die and doesn’t return, if John is in danger, if they’re all in danger. What he doesn’t have a plan for, what he didn’t anticipate, is how he’s going to fix the damage he did to John. Because one look at his face on CCTV, pale, drawn and empty, has made Sherlock realise that what he witnessed the day he followed John to the cemetery, John barely holding himself together, begging for Sherlock to come back to him, wasn’t John’s lowest point, it was the start of his descent. 

For the first time in his life, Sherlock has a problem he never thought he’d have. Somebody loves him far more than he knew, or anticipated, or in any way deserves. 

And the real problem is of course that Sherlock not only completely and utterly underestimated how much John loves him, he also completely and utterly underestimated how much he loves John. Being without John is excruciating. For both of them, it seems.

And then Sherlock has an idea. It’s simple, and crazy, and the exact opposite of his original plan. And perhaps it’s the most selfish thing he’s ever done.

But things can’t go on like this.

He grabs his phone and scrolls to his only contact. He hits the call button before he has time to think about it. “Mycroft,” he says when the voicemail beeps. “I need a favour. A big one.”

 

*-*

Sherlock has been gone from Baker Street for 79 days when he finally gets a text on his brand new burner phone.

_He wants to see you. MH_

Sherlock curses loudly, glad he’s alone in the attic he’s chosen to keep an eye on two mid-level thugs who might have information on some of Moriarty’s higher-ranking thugs. 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. 

There’s a letter. Sherlock wrote it before he “died”. It explains everything, and it was supposed to be handed to John if he actually died, but he decided that if he wants John to wait for him, it would be good to let him know that he’s actually coming back. So he asked Mycroft to give John the letter, so John would know what he did and why, so John would forgive him and wait for him in London, safe and sound.

In retrospect he thinks he should have anticipated that if John knows he’s alive and well and on the hunt, the last thing John would want to be is in London, safe and sound.

_Did you tell him it’s too dangerous? SH_

_Is it really necessary to waste precious time and data volume asking questions to which you already know the answer? MH_

Sherlock curses again, running his hands through his already disheveled hair. 

The phone beeps with another text from Mycroft.

_Do you want me to tell him no? MH_

Sherlock sighs. That’s actually the last thing he ever wants to tell John Watson. And if he’s entirely honest with himself, he wants to see John, he’s ravenous for it, aches for it. 

_Tell him 46° 42' 52.103" N 8° 10' 58.069" E. Two days from now. Midnight. SH._

_Always so melodramatic. You two deserve each other. MH._

Sherlock smiles tightly and nods. Two days. Two days to figure out what to say.

Sherlock very much fears it won’t be enough time by half.

*-*

He rents a car and drives most of the day, which is good because it gives him something to do other than gnaw his own arm off in nervous anticipation. 

He tries to think of a plan. A script, of sorts. How he wants this encounter to go. 

He comes up with nothing. 

One of the problems is that he has no idea whether all the times John saw him, punched him and then kissed him in his mind palace were extrapolations based on observed clues in John’s behaviour or simply wishful thinking on his part. He wouldn’t miss the punching, but the kissing was earth-shatteringly, life-alteringly fantastic and he wants it so much it physically hurts, a gnawing in his stomach. 

He wonders now how he never thought of this before. Clearly, a part of his brain has done a lot of thinking on the subject of kissing John Watson, but clearly that part failed to bring this notion to the attention of the rest of him.

_And what if it had?_ he thinks. What would he have done, back in London, safe and sound and at 221B, with John Watson there every day to talk to, make tea, chase killers, type badly, nag him to eat? 

He barely remembers this self, the one who took John more or less for granted, the arrogant sod. It’s only now that John is gone he’s realised how truly essential John has become to him. Maybe he thought about kissing John before, considered it, dismissed it, deleted it, thought it an unnecessary complication.

Oh, what an idiot he can be. 

*-*

The water is very loud. Sherlock didn’t consider this when he picked the location for their meeting. He picked it for its sentimental value, not its practicality, which was a mistake he would never have made if John wasn’t involved, and it’s the type of mistake he can badly afford if he wants to stay alive through all of this.

He imagined waiting for John under the Falls themselves, but getting to the Falls in the dark would probably kill them both, he decides when he gets there about eight hours before midnight. So he hides himself in the woods near the ascent to the Falls and decides this will have to do.

The moon is full, which Sherlock thinks is a nice touch. It’s spring, a warm day, but it cools down significantly when the sun has set, and he’s glad for his coat. It’s objectively a perfect night, stars twinkling, the darkness hiding them from cameras and the Fall making it impossible to eavesdrop on them. Also, the chances of being followed here without being noticed are practically nil, and he’s sure Mycroft has several spy satellites aimed at his precise location right now. 

Twigs break, there’s a rustling, a torch sweeps through the woods. A muffled curse.

John.

Sherlock’s heart is pounding as loudly in his ears as the Falls when he steps out of the wood to the small clearing John has paused in to find his bearing.

John hears him, and slowly turns around. Sherlock notices the gun in his hand, and the torch, both of them pointing directly at him. He lowers both when he identifies Sherlock, hands steady, perfectly still, and that alone tells Sherlock how tense John is. His eyes are wide and so very blue, even though Sherlock can’t see this right now. John in moonlight looks like a sepia version of himself. He also looks tired, and shell-shocked, and like he has no earthly clue what to say. Which is pretty much exactly the way Sherlock thinks he must look, because it’s how he feels.

They stand there for several minutes, completely silent. John stares at Sherlock like he’s the most heartbreaking thing John has ever seen, and it guts something in Sherlock, shocks him into speaking. “John…,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t come out as choked as he feels. 

John flinches a little, breathes in, and it’s obvious he’s trying to find something to say. 

“There were snipers, three of them. They would have killed you,” Sherlock says when what he really means is _I’m sorry, so sorry, please forgive me, please let me make this better, please let it be all right, please, please, please._

“I know,” John says, finally, and he sounds like his throat hurts. “You said so in your letter. Mycroft explained the rest.”

Silence falls, again, as they stare at each other in wordless emotion, and Sherlock slowly but surely begins to panic. What to say, it can’t be this difficult, what to say. _This is it,_ he thinks. _No do-overs, this is actually John and this is actually real and you need to make this count._

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “It… I didn’t… I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Maybe there was something else, but I couldn’t think of anything. I thought I had a choice of you sad or you dead, and that was a really easy choice to make.”

“But it was my choice, Sherlock. Mine,” John says, and he’s not yelling, but the anger in his voice is very loud nonetheless. “You took away my choices, and you lied to me. For weeks, you lied to me.”

“I know, I know, and I’m sorry, really, if I could go back and think of something else to do I would, but I can’t, he was too clever and he knew that I love you, that I'd do anything to save you, and I knew you’d be angry with me, but I had to keep you safe, I had to, anything else was unacceptable,” Sherlock answers, and he hates himself a little for babbling, but he's desperate and he doesn't even care that much that it shows.

John goes completely still. “What?”

“Please don’t make me repeat myself, John, you know how much I hate it,” Sherlock says, trying to sound normal, knowing he sounds gutted.

“Shut up and say that again,” John says, and he sounds irritated, but his eyes are shining and he’s smiling ever so slightly, like something amazing is about to happen.

“You realise I can’t shut up and say something at the same time, right?” Sherlock snaps, both a little irritated and a lot hopeful because John’s giving him that look, that _You utterly brilliant nutter_ look, and Sherlock adores that look. 

“Don’t change the subject,” John says, sounding a lot more confident and a lot more like John Watson and not only his shell, “Did you or did you not just say that you love me?”

Sherlock opens his mouth and closes it again, because yes, he did, and that wasn’t planned in any way, shape or form. But it’s true, nonetheless.

“Yes,” he answers, quietly, hoping it doesn’t show on his face how utterly terrified he is.

He thinks part of it must, because John looks at him with so much feeling, then carefully puts his gun away before marching towards Sherlock, grabbing his lapels, and drawing him down to kiss him. There’s nothing tentative about the way John kisses, it’s angry, passionate, possessive hunger through and through, and it burns right through Sherlock’s defenses and his fear, and Sherlock grabs at John and kisses him back, pulls him in, closer, closer, closer. 

John finally draws back. “You idiot, you absolute berk, never do this to me again, you’re never leaving me behind again, you hear me, never ever, is that clear? Where you go I go, is that clear?”

“Yes,” Sherlock mutters against John’s lips, chasing after the kiss, “yes, yes, never, I promise, just kiss me again.”

And John does.

*-*

Sherlock’s been gone from Baker Street for 82 days when he wakes up in a small inn in Reichenbach, Switzerland, with a naked John Watson plastered to the entire left side of his body. 

He lies there for long moments and watches John, asleep, hair mussed, drooling a little on the pillow, snoring ever so slightly. Just sleeping, peacefully. Like this is normal, like there's nothing earth-shattering going on in this bed at all. Like Sherlock didn't get everything he never knew he wanted by just stating the simple truth in three words that were so obvious that Sherlock never thought to say them before. 

_Of course I love you, you idiot,_ Sherlock mentally chastises John, tightening his grip on John. _How did you not know this before?_

John stirs, then slowly opens his eyes. He smiles at Sherlock, wide and brilliant, like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to John and not a dangerous sociopath with a morbid fascination for dead bodies. 

Sherlock clears his throat, and says, “You realise I now need to fake your death too, don’t you?”

John just grins, unrepentant, and shrugs. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he mutters and rolls on top of Sherlock to nuzzle against his neck. 

Sherlock winds his fingers through John’s hair and pulls his head back to look at him. “How are you still here?” Sherlock asks, amazed, awed, and not a little terrified.

John shakes his head, still smiling. “Idiot. Where else would I possibly be?”

And the nice thing is, Sherlock honestly can’t answer that question.


End file.
